has aggressive evangelism diminished since 1996?

[barryjones]

I'd just like to get comments from the members here on whether they believe the advent of the internet contributed to the decrease in the aggressiveness of evangelism.

In my experience, before 1996, it seemed like fundamentalist Christians were everywhere in real life. But there doesn't seem to be nearly as many aggressive real-life street preacher types since the internet came into generally popular usage.

It is my belief that because the internet contains a wealth of good information exposing the falsehood of Christianity, loud-mouth apologists who do their work verbally in real time situations off the internet (i.e., street-preachers) have been steadily dwindling in number ever since. Their whole premise of accepting Jesus within a few minutes after you hear a street preacher screaming about sin and hell, is laughably antiquated.

In the 1980's and before, the average non-Christian would have had a difficult time finding books giving the skeptical perspective of Christian apologetics claims. Libraries didn't have the "inter-library loan" program then, so if your local library didn't have such books, they could not be of further service to you in locating such books. You couldn't just find a college professor's email and email him a question, you'd have to locate him personally and see him in person or write snail mail.

Anybody remember the card catalog filing system...back when we wore animal skins and bear-claw necklaces? Geesh!

If Josh McDowell had delayed writing his ETDAV until about the year 2000, he would have been howled to scorn. I say that book was only a major best seller in the 70's and 80's precisely because it dealt with specialized subjects that the average person in those days, without a higher education in comparative religion, or graduate of a liberal seminary, would have found extremely difficult to investigate. Who in those days would have taken the time to visit seminary libraries and write letters to university professors of comparative religion, or ask enough owners of used book shops the same questions until they find somebody able to happenstance locate a book opposing apologetics claims?

Sure, you could have gone to stores selling new books, but the scholarly works that significantly take on apologetics arguments would have been pricey back in those days.

Was the internet the beginning of the end for fundamentalist Christianity? Has Christianity's plague of mega-churches (filled with unbelievably insincere idiots looking more for a good show than anything else) been spawned by the internet's making it nearly impossible to take the bible seriously?

[iskander]

I'd just like to get comments from the members here on whether they believe the advent of the internet contributed to the decrease in the aggressiveness of evangelism.

In my experience, before 1996, it seemed like fundamentalist Christians were everywhere in real life. But there doesn't seem to be nearly as many aggressive real-life street preacher types since the internet came into generally popular usage.

It is my belief that because the internet contains a wealth of good information exposing the falsehood of Christianity, loud-mouth apologists who do their work verbally in real time situations off the internet (i.e., street-preachers) have been steadily dwindling in number ever since. Their whole premise of accepting Jesus within a few minutes after you hear a street preacher screaming about sin and hell, is laughably antiquated.

In the 1980's and before, the average non-Christian would have had a difficult time finding books giving the skeptical perspective of Christian apologetics claims. Libraries didn't have the "inter-library loan" program then, so if your local library didn't have such books, they could not be of further service to you in locating such books. You couldn't just find a college professor's email and email him a question, you'd have to locate him personally and see him in person or write snail mail.

Anybody remember the card catalog filing system...back when we wore animal skins and bear-claw necklaces? Geesh!

If Josh McDowell had delayed writing his ETDAV until about the year 2000, he would have been howled to scorn. I say that book was only a major best seller in the 70's and 80's precisely because it dealt with specialized subjects that the average person in those days, without a higher education in comparative religion, or graduate of a liberal seminary, would have found extremely difficult to investigate. Who in those days would have taken the time to visit seminary libraries and write letters to university professors of comparative religion, or ask enough owners of used book shops the same questions until they find somebody able to happenstance locate a book opposing apologetics claims?

Sure, you could have gone to stores selling new books, but the scholarly works that significantly take on apologetics arguments would have been pricey back in those days.

Was the internet the beginning of the end for fundamentalist Christianity? Has Christianity's plague of mega-churches (filled with unbelievably insincere idiots looking more for a good show than anything else) been spawned by the internet's making it nearly impossible to take the bible seriously?

Christianity in Great Britain is a blessing ,


" Church votes in favour
The Church of Scotland has voted in favour of allowing people in same sex civil partnerships to be called as ministers and deacons. The historic decision was made by the General Assembly on the Mound in Edinburgh today, where the motion was passed by 309 votes in favour and 182 against. "

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/news ... rtnerships
God speaks through a democratic assembly of followers! The faithful have voted , God has spoken. Is there a more benign way of understanding religion?

[Michael BG]

In the 1980's and before, the average non-Christian would have had a difficult time finding books giving the skeptical perspective of Christian apologetics claims. Libraries didn't have the "inter-library loan" program then, so if your local library didn't have such books, they could not be of further service to you in locating such books.

I am sure that in the UK there were inter-library loans across each county even in the 1970’s.

Anybody remember the card catalog filing system...

Indeed I do and I found them very easy to use from about age 13.

Street-preachers were rare in the 1980’s and 1970’s where I lived. Of course there were Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses knocking on peoples doors. They don’t seem to do that anymore, or maybe my house has been blacklisted.

[GakuseiDon]

In the 1980's and before, the average non-Christian would have had a difficult time finding books giving the skeptical perspective of Christian apologetics claims. Libraries didn't have the "inter-library loan" program then, so if your local library didn't have such books, they could not be of further service to you in locating such books. You couldn't just find a college professor's email and email him a question, you'd have to locate him personally and see him in person or write snail mail.

I worked in public libraries and the State Library of Victoria in the early 1980s, and I can assure you that, at least here in Melbourne Australia, the inter-library loan system was well established. I assume that it was the same throughout the Commonwealth.

I was in my atheist (I'm a theist now) and skeptic phase (still a skeptic! that's my claim at least) at that time, and read a lot of skeptic and atheist material while I was supposed to be working in the 1980s. I remember reading "The Atheist Debater's Handbook" when it came out, and going through a lot of James Randi and Martin Gardner books, including his classic "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science", of which I have a copy somewhere at home.

Anybody remember the card catalog filing system...back when we wore animal skins and bear-claw necklaces? Geesh!

Oh yes. And microfiche, and flash cameras for recording book loans. A fun fact: a lot of libraries didn't actually have film in the recording cameras about half the time when staff were checking out books, since developing the film was thought to be more expensive than stock shrinkage!

If Josh McDowell had delayed writing his ETDAV until about the year 2000, he would have been howled to scorn. I say that book was only a major best seller in the 70's and 80's precisely because it dealt with specialized subjects that the average person in those days, without a higher education in comparative religion, or graduate of a liberal seminary, would have found extremely difficult to investigate. Who in those days would have taken the time to visit seminary libraries and write letters to university professors of comparative religion, or ask enough owners of used book shops the same questions until they find somebody able to happenstance locate a book opposing apologetics claims?

Sure, you could have gone to stores selling new books, but the scholarly works that significantly take on apologetics arguments would have been pricey back in those days.

There were lots of books against religious claims, apologetic arguments and pseudoscience nonsense available, especially from the 1950s. But IIRC most of these were written for a popular audience. Have there been many scholarly works that significantly take on apologetic arguments? I don't doubt this, but I can't remember any off-hand. Which ones did you have in mind?

Was the internet the beginning of the end for fundamentalist Christianity? Has Christianity's plague of mega-churches (filled with unbelievably insincere idiots looking more for a good show than anything else) been spawned by the internet's making it nearly impossible to take the bible seriously?

Yes, I think so. I don't think the quality of the arguments are any better, but people nowadays can go on-line and almost immediately find something to re-inforce their views, rather than have to wait to go to the library to find something to re-inforce their views.

But the big difference is the availability of material on Youtube. There was a documentary in 1972 on Marjoe Gortner, whom was a famous child preacher who exposed the nonsense of revival shows even while still doing them. A damning insight into the big evangelists. It should be made mandatory viewing in schools. Here's an extract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-NwKD9laZw

[Peter Kirby]

Religion has always had doubters. In honesty, most "believers" are also "doubters," even if that's shrunk a little with some "believers" becoming skeptics. The advantage of the internet is that people are not isolated in their doubt. Social confirmation of atheism is a click away, available in privacy from family and friends. This breaks the grip of social isolation and, for some, allows the questions to be considered on their intellectual merits, without the fear of having nobody to turn to with their doubts.

It's not just access to more information. It's also access to wider social circles. Southern country kids mix with coastal kids mix with Russian kids online -- and adults as well. It's much more common for kids to be atheists in America. The pews have long been fairly empty of the 20-somethings, but now there's less reason to go back, since many of those doubters become "confirmed" skeptics, thanks to the internet, whereas previously they could only be a doubting Thomas, with only a community of faith around them.

[Peter Kirby]

American exceptionalism aside, the United States will be where most of Europe is today in about 30 years, religion-wise. This is a demographic shift.

[toejam]

I can only comment on the local street preachers that I regularly engage with in my hometown - a group of Ray Comfort adoring Calvinists, a group of Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and the occasional Harri-Krishna and Muslim. It was about 6 years ago when I started regularly engaging and arranging one-on-one meetings with street preachers or anyone else interested in Judeo-Christian Origins. In that time, I've noticed a general declining trend. When I first started engaging, there seemed to be a lot more young 20-somethings who were studying theology at the local Bible School, who were relatively up to date with scholarship, etc., who, despite my disagreements, generally knew their stuff. These are really the minority now, with the overwhelming majority of them being either young new converts who, for the most part, know next to nothing about secular scholarship and are typically not the brightest bunch, or the old man brigade. Obviously this is an anecdotal and subjective assessment, but it's what I see on the ground in my hometown.

[neilgodfrey]

Speaking of the little devils what pops up in my rss feed but this (almost relevant to the OP) ..... Exposing the Audacious Project to Make Christian Converts in America's Prisons

[DCHindley]

In the 60's & 70's we had here in the US of A the "Jesus People" aka "Jesus Freaks," of which I was one from age 14 (about 1969 or 70) to age 21. I read the KJV from Genesis to Revelation numerous times, underlining key passages with pen, pencil and yellow highlighters. I still have a couple of them, one really dog eared. Didn't even know the KJV had originally come out with the Apocrypha, but wouldn't have cared to read them then, until my dad gave me a New American Bible (Catholic, not that we were of that persuasion, but it was the only study bible he could find for Christmas). It spoke of some of the historical allusions, and opened me up to the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. WTF was this "Book of Henoch"? I looked into these things and realized there was more than what was in a KJV bible, and bought an Oxford study bible.

In high school, I knew several Christians of the kind we call "fundamentalists," but which in UK influenced regions would possibly be known as Darbyite Dispensationalists. They all had leather bound Scofield Reference bibles (sp?) and went to "Bible Churches" (Bible Presbyterian, Bible Methodist, Bible Baptist, etc). One kid played drums, which worried his parents because they feared he would stray from percussion during the playing of good Christian "marches" to playing syncopated beats he had picked up from Latin America where he and his parents were missionaries for a while. Ben S probably knows exactly what I am talking about, having lived the missionary life as a youth.

I was immersed in a bible study group and we tended to follow the latest trend in solidly Calvinistic Baptist youth group type reading. Read oodles of tracts of all different kinds (JC Chick, Eschatological ones, etc.). I wanted to go to a "Bible College" but dad says "No!" though he never ended up paying for much of it anyways. Off to "community colleges" for a couple years. Then the leader of the group (just another HS student like the rest of us) started to get interested in what we call here the "Full Gospel" movement, where you speak in tongues and prophesize during group prayer. In mainline churches this was known as the "Charismatic" movement, and I knew of priests at a Catholic run all-boys high school who participated..

I got involved for a short while with a "twig" bible study sponsored by The Way International, which ran a couple Bible colleges on NW Ohio, but came away wondering what was wrong with them. They seemed a bit too "cult-ish". Since then I have visited them for business twice (we insured their on & off-road vehicle fleet - you'd be amazed how many Cushman electric carts a campus can use), and got a quick tour of their campus near Lima, Ohio, including dormitories that were built to resemble grain silos (they also operated a grain farm with hundreds of acres under cultivation) which critics said were really missile silos that would be used to start the War of Armageddon.

But they got caught up in a controversy around 1969-70 when word spread about that sex had been going on between certain college-age to 30s male group leaders and several underage female proselytes during one or two Way sponsored Christian music concerts. They were pioneers in promoting "Christian rock" bands and were actually rather good at it I heard. The Harley Davidson motorcycle riding leader V.P.W. thought it was perhaps the music (that damn syncopated beat!) and put a lid on it, but at the same time as he snuffed out that sex he also snuffed out the spirit that was driving the movement, alienating the ones who had came because of the music and fellowship, not sex. The Way has now become almost irrelevant to all except Secret Alias, who learned at the feet of George Lamsa (a translator of the Peshitta), who in turn enjoyed the hospitality of the founder of the Way (VPW) in the final months of editing that work.

Believe me, no evangelically oriented Christians were having sex in those days (except those who did). At Bob Jones University and Pensacola Christian Academy in the US, dating students could approach no closer than 6" away from one other. But one girl I dated was molested by her counselor when attending Jerry Falwell's Lynchburg College during a very withdrawn period for her. When she confided in other teachers and truth was found out by the administration, the counselor was allowed to finish his contract and resign quietly. It is not just Catholic bishops who protect their own. Come to think of it, I think that one of those young men who got caught up in the Way sex scandal was recently still recruiting young virgins to serve as his child brides in the practice of polygamy (and no, he was/is not a Mormon).

Thanks to summer jobs (I made Benzoyl Peroxide, a very strong oxidizer, and worked at retail stores - ugh!), I saved up enough to attend a liberal arts school run, of all peoples, by the United Brethren Church (no, not that one, think Menno Simon and Zwingli, not Plymouth Brethren). Basically, Mennonites without black cars & Luther Bible in German. No dancing or movies, at least on campus. Plenty of seminary students, some of whom were young women of Baptist (mainly "free will" kind) orientation. That sort of thing (female ministers) was VERY unusual in those days. That was where I got my year of NT Greek. I should have taken Hebrew as well, but that didn't interest me then. Finally lost my zeal for the cause while there. I discovered Charles' Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament and the Ante-Nicene fathers (bought a set for something like US $100, an immense sum in those days).

But you are right, you see very little of that energy driven "get the word out" POV now. I met a gal who was a Jesus freak (she was sister to my girlfriend at the time) in Florida, USA, and one or two back here in Ohio. Dated three girls who attended Bible churches (later teens and again in mid to later 20s), the most recent one was in the latter years of the 1980s. But since then there was just this one business owner who I met for an insurance audit in the 1990s who was quite sure that Josephus' testimony about Christ in Antiquities book 18 was genuine.

I'm not sure I buy into the idea that technology is making them more aware. On the contrary, I think there is so much information bombarding the youth of today that many have just tuned much of it out, both pro Jesus and con Jesus, and are only interested in popular and fad culture. The few who do still care about Jesus have rounded up the wagons and are in their own mini Armageddons. The world of popular apathetic devotion to popular culture scares them because they cannot seem to stop their children from being attracted to it and leaving the fold. So now they imagine that the Devil is out to get them, and everyone is their enemy. In the end, they are doing the opposite of what Jesus is portrayed as teaching in the Gospels, to their shame.

DCH

[andrewcriddle]

Religion has always had doubters. In honesty, most "believers" are also "doubters," even if that's shrunk a little with some "believers" becoming skeptics. The advantage of the internet is that people are not isolated in their doubt. Social confirmation of atheism is a click away, available in privacy from family and friends. This breaks the grip of social isolation and, for some, allows the questions to be considered on their intellectual merits, without the fear of having nobody to turn to with their doubts.

It's not just access to more information. It's also access to wider social circles. Southern country kids mix with coastal kids mix with Russian kids online -- and adults as well. It's much more common for kids to be atheists in America. The pews have long been fairly empty of the 20-somethings, but now there's less reason to go back, since many of those doubters become "confirmed" skeptics, thanks to the internet, whereas previously they could only be a doubting Thomas, with only a community of faith around them.

The internet does have other effects on young people from a religious background. It makes it easier to find other young people from the same background to get to know better and maybe marry.

Andrew Criddle